In Roitelman v. The Queen (2014 TCC 139), the Tax Court considered whether a director could establish that he had been duly diligent in his attempts to prevent his company’s failure to remit source deductions where he had delegated responsibility for the company’s bookkeeping and tax filings to an employee.

Background

The taxpayer owned an electrical contracting business that focused primarily on commercial and industrial contracting, installations and service work. Initially, the taxpayer personally completed all payroll and remittance filings. As his business expanded, the taxpayer was required to travel more frequently, thus spending less time in his office. Consequently, the taxpayer hired and trained a bookkeeper. He oversaw her work and at the outset ensured remittances were made in a timely fashion. After the employee assumed responsibility for the bookkeeping, the corporation did not remain current in its remittance obligations. From August 2005 to March 2008, the CRA sent five letters to the corporation regarding repeated failures to remit. From October 2006 to March 2008, the CRA sent seven Notices of Assessment in respect of the unremitted source deductions. The taxpayer did not receive nor was he personally aware of many of these letters and assessments. Later, after the bookkeeper had been dismissed, the taxpayer discovered hidden documents and unsent remittance cheques in various locations in the office.

For 2006 and 2007, the CRA assessed the taxpayer for directors’ liability for unremitted source deductions under subsection 227.1(1) of the Income Tax Act. The taxpayer appealed to the Tax Court and relied on the due diligence defence under subsection 227.1(3) of the ITA.

Tax Court

The Tax Court allowed the appeal. The Court found the taxpayer established a due diligence defence and thus he was not personally liable for the unremitted amounts.

The Court reviewed the key decisions on the issue, and noted that the applicable test from Buckingham v. The Queen (2011 FCA 142) is objective and contemplates the degree of care, diligence and skill exercised by the director in preventing a failure to remit. The Court also cited Balthazard v. The Queen (2011 FCA 331) for the proposition that after-the-fact behavior and corrective measures can be relevant in certain circumstances.

In Roitelman, the Court compared the personal actions of the taxpayer to the reasonably prudent person and emphasized that the director’s interaction with the bookkeeper should not be analyzed on in hindsight but, rather, with a view of the circumstances that existed during the relevant period:

[28] The test does not dictate that the positive steps taken must be effective in ensuring future compliance but only that a director takes those steps and that those steps would be the proactive steps that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised in comparable circumstances.

The Court stated that it was reasonable for the taxpayer to expect his bookkeeper to bring any essential correspondence to his attention, and it was reasonable for him to believe that when he signed remittance cheques that they were being forwarded to the Receiver General. There was no evidence that the taxpayer benefited or intended to benefit in any way from the company’s failure to remit.

Despite his actions (i.e., hiring and training the bookkeeper, delegating responsibility, etc.), the taxpayer was unable to discover or ascertain the extent of the remittance failures. The bookkeeper thwarted his attempts to ensure compliance. The Court held that the taxpayer could not reasonably have known that the bookkeeper would engage in fraudulent and misleading activities.

Roitelman is an interesting case because there are very few decisions in which a taxpayer is able to establish a due diligence defence where he/she delegates responsibility for bookkeeping/remittances and relies on the work of that other person. In Kaur v. The Queen (2013 TTC 227), the Tax Court stated, “… The director’s oversight duties with respect to [remittance obligations] cannot be delegated in their entirety to a subordinate, as was done in the present case.” In Roitelman, the taxpayer had admitted that he relied on “blind faith” that the remittances had been made in a timely fashion. However, the result in Roitelman reminds us that such reliance may still be reasonable where there was deceit and fraud perpetrated on the director by a subordinate.

In the Provincial Income Allocation Newsletter No. 4 (March 2013), the Canada Revenue Agency notes that the Allocation Review Committee (“ARC”) has changed its position on amounts previously excluded in calculating “salary and wages paid in the year” for provincial income allocation purposes:

Effective for the 2013 tax year, the amount of salaries and wages paid in the year for the purpose of provincial income allocation calculations will include all taxable benefits that are to be included in the employees’ income in the year. This includes deemed amounts such as stock option benefits under section 7 of the Income Tax Act (Canada), regardless of whether these benefits are deductible in calculating the employer’s income.

Corporations having a permanent establishment in more than one province will need to consider the ARC’s change in position when preparing their next income tax return. Applying the previous year’s method of calculation salaries and wages may fail to include all of the amounts now required to be included in the calculation.

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